The Associated Press has spoken to workers at the Gig peeling factory outside Bangkok, who have told of working 16 hours a day, under threats of being bashed if they refused to work, or killed if they tried to escape their forced labour.
Photograph: Daniel Munoz/AAP

Australia’s three major grocery retailers have admitted stocking seafood from a Thai company accused of using slave labour.

An investigation by the Associated Press has captured evidence of forced labour at a factory outside Bangkok, which had supplied seafood to a subsidiary of Thai Union. Some of the workers are children who’ve said they work under the threat of violence.

Woolworths, Coles and Aldi have all told Fairfax they use Thai Union as a supplier, and have launched investigations.

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“We will investigate this further with our supplier and seek advice from our NGO partners,” Woolworths said.

Coles said it stocked frozen prawns that were sourced from Thai Union but said it was proactive on labour issues, working closely with non-government organisations to ensure the products it stocks are ethical.

An Aldi spokeswoman said it would review the reports by the Associated Press after confirming it also sold Thai Union products.

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The wholesaler for IGA Supermarkets, Metcash, told Fairfax that while Thai Union was not its major supplier it could not rule out that it had not purchased prawns from the supplier.

“Some of our other locally based seafood suppliers may purchase prawns from Thai Union as they are one of the largest seafood suppliers in the world,” a Metcash spokesman said.

The Associated Press has spoken to workers at the Gig peeling factory outside Bangkok, who have told of working 16 hours a day, under threats of being bashed if they refused to work, or killed if they tried to escape their forced labour.

Their job was to spend 16 hours a day ripping the guts, heads and tails from prawns, or shrimp, for overseas markets, their hands aching from being immersed in cold water. They were paid little, if anything.

The report said many of the workers had been sold to the factory and were migrants from Burma, and those found at the Gig factory included children.

Thai Union president and chief executive Thiraphong Chansiri described the report as a “wake-up call”, and said the company would bring all processing in-house to ensure its supply chain does not involve forced labour.

“I am deeply disappointed that despite our best efforts we have discovered this potential instance of illegal labor practice in our supply chain,” Thai Union CEO Thiraphong Chansiri said in a statement.

He acknowledged “that illicitly sourced product may have fraudulently entered its supply chain” and confirmed a supplier “was doing business with an unregistered pre-processor in violation of our code of conduct”.

This article was amended on 21 December 2015 to clarify that Thai Union did not own Gig; rather Thai Union’s subsidiary Okeanos had obtained seafood from Gig. A response is pending from Thai Union to queries from Guardian Australia about its relationship with another seafood processor reported by Associated Press to have mistreated workers.